Chocolate: The Gift of Love
American consumers are expected to spend over $12 billion on Valentine's Day this year, according to the National Retail Federation. America is the world's largest chocolate consumer, consuming 3.3 billion pounds of chocolate in 2000 alone. The Chocolate Manufacturers Association predicts more than 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate will be sold this Valentine’s Day. Why then is the picture so bleak for most of the world’s cocoa farmers who grow the crop that becomes everybody's favorite candy?
The Not-So-Sweet Truth
In 2001, America was shocked to learn about the use of child labor and even child slavery on Ivory Coast cocoa farms from reports released by the U.S. State Department and the ILO (International Labor Organization). The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) followed with an extensive study of West African cocoa farms that found more than 284,000 children under age 17 working in hazardous conditions, and that 60 percent of children working on Ivory Coast cocoa farms had no schooling. Such findings pose a serious ethical challenge to the cocoa and chocolate industry because about 43 percent of the world's cocoa is grown in the fields of the Ivory Coast, and West Africa as a whole produces two thirds of the world's crop.
Cycle of Poverty
What lies at the root of these horrible conditions? Severe poverty, child labor, and the reemergence of child slavery can all be traced in large part to the fact that raw cocoa prices are too low to provide farmers with income sufficient to meet their production costs, much less their basic needs. According to the IITA, average annual cocoa revenues range from $30 to $110 per household member, making ""it difficult for families to have sufficient income to meet their needs” - or pay their workers, no doubt.
The effects of devastatingly low world market prices are exacerbated by the deregulation of agriculture in West Africa, which has abolished commodity boards, in turn leaving small farmers at the mercy of the market. This economic crisis has forced farmers to cut their labor costs, and tragically that has meant relying on slave labor or pulling children out of school to work on family farms. Thus small-scale farmers and their children remain trapped in a cycle of poverty, without hope for sufficient income or access to basic education or health care.
Candy Coated Excuses
Initially, U.S. chocolate manufacturers have said they are not responsible for the conditions on cocoa plantations, since they do not own them. But the $13 billion chocolate industry is heavily consolidated, with just two firms – Hershey's and M&M/Mars – controlling two-thirds of the U.S. chocolate candy market. Some chocolate companies are actually fueling the poverty behind child labor by manipulating commodity markets that in ways keep prices low, and by failing to ensure that producers receive a fair share of profits from chocolate and cocoa sales. In the end, farmers receive approximately five percent of the profits from chocolate and cocoa sales, while companies receive about 70 percent.
Get Back to Basics: Fair Prices
After the industry's initial excuses were met with bad publicity and the prospect of regulation, the industry said it would take steps to eliminate child slavery. On Nov. 30, 2001, the U.S. chocolate industry announced a Protocol to ""eliminate the worst forms of child labor in the growing and processing of cocoa beans."" However, the Protocol ignores the basic issue of fair prices for small farmers. Fortunately, there is a proven way to address this issue: Fair Trade.
The Answer is Simple: Fair Trade
Fair Trade guarantees a minimum price per pound, similar to minimum wage regulations in the United States. It prohibits child slavery and forced labor, and requires independent monitoring. Fair Trade certification is a way to correct the economic imbalances of the cocoa system. For the average cocoa farmer, Fair Trade cocoa revenues mean the difference between sending a child to school or keeping them at home to work on the farm, the difference between paying workers fairly or paying them low wages or none at all, and the difference between hope and despair.
What's Your Favorite Kind of Chocolate?
Simple as it may seem, the kind of chocolate we choose makes a major difference in the lives of cocoa farmers and their families. Fair Trade chocolate and cocoa are now available throughout the United States, certified through the non-profit monitoring agency TransFairUSA. In 2000, Fair Trade cooperatives produced 89 million pounds of cocoa, yet only three million pounds were sold at Fair Trade prices. This Valentine's Day, choose Fair Trade chocolate and help end abusive labor and poverty. Anything else would just be bittersweet.
Buy Fair Trade chocolate and other items at Global Exchange.
